Thursday, August 21, 2014

Toronto Star Retracts Bogus Claim That Most Of Gaza Dead Are Women And Children

The Toronto Star finally published a retraction to as bogus claim in one of its articles that the majority of dead in Gaza were women and children.

The article in question was written by Canadian 'Palestine' shill Dr. Izzeldine Abuelaish on July 30th who wrote, ”At the moment of writing this article, some 1,359 Palestinians have lost their lives in the current conflict with Israel, mostly women and children, and some 7,677 have been severely wounded.”

Watchdog group Honest Reporting Canada called out this nonsense and also questioned Abuelaish’s credibility, after which The Star added the following notice to the column on its website:

“Clarification: Aug. 5, 2015: This article was edited from a previous version that said the Palestinians killed in Gaza were ‘mostly’ women and children. In fact, as now stated, it was ‘many’ women and children killed. According to the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, as of July 31, 2014, a reported 345 children and 186 women were among 1,432 dead, 85 per cent of them civilians. Among the civilian casualties, 43.5 per cent were women and children. Among the total number of Palestinians killed, 39.5 per cent were women and children.”

Of course, those figures (from the so-called Palestinian Centre for Human Rights) are inflated as well. Something like 20-30 people per day die in Gaza of natural causes like old age, or maybe getting on the wrong side of a Hamas leader, but those will be included as 'war casualties'. And the percentage of civilians? Some other news sources have had something to say about that, even the BBC.

Al Jazeera, quoted the Hamas controlled Gaza Health Ministry on July 26 that 315 children and 166 females were among 1,361 dead and 6,780 injured in the Gaza Strip. The New York Times quoting the same Hamas controlled source reported on Aug. 5 that, “According to data from the Palestinian Ministry of Health, 34 percent of those killed in Gaza from July 6-31 were children, women, elderly or female victims of an unknown age… since July 6: 429 under age 18, 79 over 60, 243 women.”

Meanwhile, the BBC cited a report from the office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights that said that as of Aug. 6, 1,843 Palestinians had been killed since the start of Operation Protective Edge. Among the civilians, more than three times as many men were killed as women, according to the UN report.

Considering that Hamas don't exactly wear uniforms, how exactly does one tell combatants from civilians? And where exactly in the UN HCHR getting it's data? From that same Gaza Health Ministry? From UNRWA? And how many of these people were forced human shields, forbidden to leave an area by Hamas after the Israelis dropped leaflets and warned people to evacuate?

At any rate, I'm glad to see that the Star maintains at least a semblance of journalistic integrity.